


Data Recovery

by AlchemyAlice



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Psychics/Psionics, Gen, Jaeger Pilots, Sentient Jaegers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-25
Updated: 2014-04-25
Packaged: 2018-01-20 18:25:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1520921
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlchemyAlice/pseuds/AlchemyAlice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some things can be rebuilt from scratch. Others, not so much. (In other words, Gipsy Danger is a lot more than a heap of salvaged metal.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Data Recovery

_October, 2023_

 

Stacker had gotten very good at reading Mako, even though she had become equally good, over the years, at being unreadable when necessary. It was hard to miss the shine in her eyes, however, when they entered Oblivion Bay, and peered up at the towering, broken figure of Gipsy Danger.

"She's in rough shape, sir," Lieutenant Reyes reported. "They managed to collect most of her components when they did the cleanup after Knifehead, but they've mostly been in storage, rusting out. I doubt you'll find use for them."

"Interface is still good, though," Mako said quietly, directed at Stacker.

"Yes," he agreed, "Becket wouldn't have been able to drive her to shore otherwise."

"You're sure this is the one you want to bring back though?" Reyes asked. "Matador Fury's in about the same shape, and Coyote Tango's got most of her chassis--"

"But her brain's gone," Stacker interrupted, a little sharply. Reyes winced. Stacker looked sidelong at Mako. "You wanted one with the Pons still intact."

"Some things we can build from scratch," Mako replied, still gazing up at Gipsy. "Others not as much."

Stacker nodded. "Yes, Reyes, we want this one. Prep her for transport."

Reyes saluted. "Sir."

"You've got your work cut out for you, Miss Mori," Stacker said. “She’s pretty damn broken.”

Mako hummed agreement. She didn't look unhappy about it. “Broken things can be fixed,” she said.

***

It took ten days for Gipsy to reach the Hong Kong Shatterdome, in which Stacker hardly saw Mako at all--she had earned the top supervisory position for Gipsy's reconstruction fair and square, and as such, she was juggling the responsibilities of that on top of pilot simulations. Stacker had worried about giving her the supervisory position, not because she wasn't capable, but because he knew she wanted to pilot first.

"I need a jaeger to pilot in, first," she'd said in Japanese, "And I'd like to get to know her when she arrives."

Stacker couldn't argue with that. He couldn't argue with her simulator score, either, as much as he might like to.

She had bowed to him with a half smile on her lips, and left him to his own work, her clipboard crammed with requisitions forms and blueprints.  

"Have you seen the plans she's got for Gipsy?" Tendo asked him, a couple of days later.

"Most of them," Stacker replied.

"Ambitious."

"It's the end of the world, Choi."

Tendo's face twitched like he wanted to roll his eyes. "We don't even know who'll be piloting her. Raleigh's dropped off the face of the earth. No one else is even qualified for a Mark III yet. What's Mako basing her designs on?"

"I trust her," was all Stacker said, because he did.

Tendo huffed, but didn't argue further.

***

They powered Gipsy up when she reached Hong Kong, just to see what was left of the nervous system and map out what in the interface needed repair. The central engine was going to be completely replaced, so they hooked her up to the shatterdome's power grid instead, tethered in place with massive cables. She drew a crowd--everyone wanted to see the final jaeger that would be joining up and seeing them through the coming battles.

"All systems as ready as they can be, sir," Tendo reported.

"Okay. Start her up," Stacker ordered.

The power surged and hit Gipsy Danger with a jolt--she nearly rocked with the force of it, one knee bending slightly. Sparks flew from the frayed ends of her missing arm.

The various scientists and engineers scribbled and typed notes furiously, taking stock of the damage.

Stacker could see broken shards of light flickering on in the Conn-Pod, looking and vulnerable and bright through Gipsy's broken visor shield.

"Right," Tendo said, "That's not too horrible, all things considered. We've got fair response in both legs, strong response in the remaining arm, and she's trying to make full contact with the bridge, though it's not going through the whole way. I've got--holy _shit!_ "

The crowd around her started yelling, flinching back. With a shriek of tortured metal, Gipsy _moved_.

Not far--she couldn't, she'd fall and bring the whole bay down before she'd even managed a full step away from her dock. But her arm--her full-response arm with broken fingers and labouring hydraulics, lifted fast, palm desperately outstretched, like she was reaching--

"Jesus Christ," Stacker murmured, and then to Tendo, "Give me the tannoy direct to her systems, now."

'You're on," Tendo said, making the connection and passing a microphone over.

Stacker snatched it and brought it to his mouth. "He's not here, Gipsy," he shouted into the comm. "Do you read me? Ranger Becket is not here. Do not engage. Your mission is over, and _he is not here_. Stand. Down. This is Marshall Pentecost, and that was an order."

Gipsy halted, arm still raised. Sparks showered from her joints.

And then she stood down. Stacker would have been willing to bet that if she'd been built to allow it, her shoulders would have hunched in around her hollowed out heart.

Tendo exhaled.

"Goddamned Beckets," Stacker muttered. He looked to his left. "All right there, Miss Mori?"

Mako had a hand over her mouth. She nodded jerkily, not looking at him. Her expression, even to Stacker, was completely unreadable.

He turned back to Tendo. "Do you have all the data you need?"

"And then some," Tendo nodded. "Wasn't expecting...whatever that was."

Stacker nodded. "Then shut her down. We're not doing that again until there's someone in there to call the shots."

***

It got around, how Gipsy was doing, what she was doing. The other jaegers were settled, their pilots present and familiar when they came through the Shatterdome, and sometimes they certainly displayed a bit of the lingering drift when their pilots dreamt, but they weren't restless. Once Gipsy got fitted with her nuclear turbine, everyone kept an eye out for whether she'd wake on her own, or twitch with the dreams of an ex-pilot who could be almost anywhere on earth.

She didn't, though. Through the bulk of her restoration, she was quiet.

***

The only pilots who spent any extended time in the Hong Kong shatterdome were the ones based there permanently--the Wei triplets were in and out constantly, checking on Crimson Typhoon and reporting back to Stacker when necessary.

Several weeks into Gipsy’s restoration, Jin pulled Stacker aside.

“Sir,” he started. “Who’s going to pilot her?” He jerked his head in the direction of Gipsy.

Stacker raised his eyebrows. “Why is that something you need to know, Ranger?”

Jin shrugged. “Get to know coworkers. Always good. Also, hear things about Wall of Life shutting down jaeger programme, wonder what you’re planning with her.”

Stacker, not for the first time, suppressed irritation at the rumor mill that seemed to get stronger with every shatterdome he’d worked at. “We’ll be testing new pilots for compatibility,” he said shortly.

“Even when she has preferences?” Jin asked, an eyebrow raised. Stacker gave him a quelling look, but he was unmoved. The Wei Tangs were all very good at comfortably skirting the borders of insubordination when it suited them.

“Do you have a point to make, Ranger?” he said.

Jin nodded slowly, clearly mulling something over. Then he leaned a little closer, conspiratorially. “Should ask Russians about it.”

Stacker narrowed his eyes. “About what?”

“Gipsy pilot. We talk to them when patrolling overlaps on Korean coast. They see things.” Jin shrugged. “Rumors, but. Russians crazy, bad taste in music, but not liars.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Stacker said dryly.

Jin wended his way back to his brothers, leaving Stacker in the middle of the shatterdome. He looked up at the hulking figure of Gipsy.

He made a note to drop a word to the Cherno Alpha pilots when he next got a chance.

***

Mako wasn't an engineer through formal education, but she had a flair for mechanics that the crews respected. It was the only reason they let her hang out in the Conn-Pod--most supervisors would have been out on the upper floors of the shatterdome, overlooking the reconstruction process. Esteban however, along with the rest of the crew working on Gipsy Danger, knew to look for her inside Gipsy herself.

"Sorry to bother you, Miss Mori, but the gyro's all out of whack in the left leg, can you possibly get a hold of--" Esteban stopped in the entrance of the Conn-Pod. "Miss Mori?"

Mako turned, expectant. Her hand was resting on one of the refitted hand-control rigs, her pinky finger slipping into one of the articulation rings. "Yes?"

"Were you just...singing something?"

She flushed slightly. "Helps me think."

Esteban brushed that away; that part, he got. "Yeah but, what song was that?"

"Oh," she frowned. "Edo lullaby. My father used to--and then Marshal..." She stopped, and tilted her head in lieu of finishing the sentence.

"Hm," Esteban said.

"Why?"

"Just wondering," he said, a little vaguely. He fumbled with his tablet, bringing up the diagram of Gipsy's knee. "Uh, the gyrostabilizer?"

She nodded, still looking at him oddly. "Let me have a look, and I'll see what I can do."

After they'd gone over what was needed, Esteban retreated from the Conn-Pod and headed back down to ground level. He tapped his fingers on the railing as he waited for the elevator.

He'd been to Japan when he was small, before Onibaba and all the rest. The Edo lullaby had been very popular, he'd heard it sung on the radio and played on guitar in the streets.

He hadn't expected to hear it humming through an American jaeger's vocal response system late at night, when most of the crew was off sleeping. Low and sad, and heavy with static, it had scared Esteban half to death before he'd realised what was going on.

He'd heard of jaegers shifting in their sleep, but never singing.

Mako started up again, once she thought he was out of earshot.

"Bōya wa yoi ko da, Nenne shina! Bōya no omori wa, Doko e itta? Ano yama koete, Sato e itta."

_Hush, good child, sleep! Where did your nurse go? Beyond that mountain, back to her home._

"Who's the nurse now?" Esteban muttered, though not without a smile.

***

The Kaidonovksys had taken over sporadic patrol of most of the northern coast of both Asia and North America in Gipsy’s absence and the slow inexorable shutdown of funding from the PPDC, which meant that Stacker was bound to run into them at one point or another. When he did, they were fresh off patrol and sticking close--velcroing as best they could while also shoveling food into their mouths in the mess hall. Half in her husband’s lap, Sasha gave Stacker a cursory glance while popping a spoonful of oatmeal into her mouth and then checking her lipstick. “Marshal,” she acknowledged. Aleksis rumbled a similar sentiment.

“Rangers. Good to see you. All clear?”

“Yes. Very boring.”

“Anything new on the ground otherwise?”

Sasha gave him an eloquent look. He would need to be far more specific than that.

“Ranger Jin Wei Tang might have mentioned something about you two hearing of a wayward pilot.”

“Triplets. Gossips,” Aleksis scoffed, and then went back to eating, hugging Sasha closer with a rough shrug of his shoulders. She bore it gracefully enough, spooning another mouthful of oatmeal into her mouth and then flattening her unoccupied hand on his chest.

“The Anchorage boy,” she nodded. “We understand he’s missed.”

Stacker sighed. Word about Gipsy’s tantrum had gotten around, it seemed. “Have you heard anything?”

Sasha shrugged. “Not in Anchorage anymore. But can’t have gone far. We may have heard mention of him on the Wall.”

The Wall? Huh. “I’ll keep that in mind,” Stacker said. He stood, straightening his jacket.

“Who’s keeping her company in the meantime, huh?” Sasha asked as he turned away. “Jaegers get lonely too, you know.”

Stacker knew--more and more these days, it seemed. He walked away without replying.

***

The PPDC slashed funding for the jaeger program again and again until the well was dry.

Stacker protested, though not for long. He was familiar enough with the feeling of losing battles, and he knew this was one of them. Instead, he gathered what was left of his accumulated chips across the board, and pushed them all towards Hong Kong.

***

Mako drummed her fingers on Gipsy’s console, and continued to hum tunes from out of the deepest recesses of her childhood memories when it was loud enough with construction outside that she could barely hear it herself. She had begun doing so at first because she wanted to be welcoming--a friendly face among the various scurrying engineers and programmers who would be crawling over Gipsy, patching her inside and out. Now it had become habit.

A possibly embarrassing one, if Esteban’s reaction was anything to go by. But Mako was generally willing to ignore such things, or at least pretend they weren’t happening.

“Miss Mori.”

She turned on her heel and bowed. “Marshal. How can I help?”

Stacker returned the bow, and said, “I’m going to be away for the next few days tracking down a lead. Do you need anything before I go?”

She shook her head. It wasn’t the first time he had needed to go on excursions, usually rounding up experts and staff as well as whatever jaeger equipment he could salvage from monuments and other recovery spaces. He seemed quite intent upon this one, though--there was a certain set to his shoulders that she recognised, and his weight was on the balls of his feet. “We’re making good time with her,” she said, twitching her head back to indicate Gipsy. “We may even be close to finishing by the time you return.”

He gave her a genuine smile, one he reserved for her more often than not. “That’s excellent, Miss Mori. Speaking of which, I have one more task for you, if you have the time.”

“Certainly.”

He handed her a tablet. “You know the other trainees better than I. Assemble a list of candidates for Gipsy.”

She frowned slightly. “I’ve already--”

“You have a list of independent candidates with high scores and training for Mark IIIs. I’m going to need a shorter list.”

She looked down at the tablet. Next to the usual table of score sheets and test runs, was a new column: _Projected Drift Compatibility, Becket._

She looked back up sharply. “Ranger Becket?”

Stacker gave her a dry look. “I’m hoping we might persuade him to come back for a last run.”

In learning all she could about Gipsy Danger, Mako knew Raleigh Becket’s file front to back. “I don’t think you’ll have much trouble.”

“We’ll see.” He stepped forward, surprisingly light and quiet for a man of his size, and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “I’ll let you know when I’m on my way back. Make that list for me, please.”

“Of course, Marshal.”

As he stepped away, Mako stroked a hand down Gipsy’s visor. She almost thought she felt an answering tremor beneath her palm.

***

Stacker found Raleigh Becket looking like he’d walked through a few too many fires--soot on his hands and face, clothes and nerves frayed pretty equally. He looked tired, bone-deep like he’d been tired for years, but there was some light in him yet, a steadiness that Stacker found familiar, in a strange way. He vaguely remembered liking him and Yancy, even when they’d been wet behind the ears and gamboling around Anchorage right out of training.

“Where do you want to die?” he asked him. “Here? Or in a jaeger?”

And Raleigh didn’t blink, but his eyes unfocused slightly, like he was listening to something somewhere off in the distance. “You make it sound so appealing,” he murmured.

“Have I ever lied to you, Becket?” Stacker replied.

“No, sir. You haven’t.”

“Well then.” Stacker tilted his shoulders back in the direction of the helicopter. “You coming?”

Raleigh snorted. “Yeah, I guess I am.”

As they climbed into the belly of the helicopter, Raleigh stowing his duffle beneath his seat, he asked, “Where are we headed?”

“West,” Stacker answered.

“Huh.” Raleigh subsided.

Stacker would nearly swear to it, though, that before he fell silent, Raleigh hummed something familiar under his breath. An old tune, and a sad one.

It was hard to hear beneath the roar of the helicopter’s blades, though.

Stacker nodded to the pilot up front, and they lifted off towards Hong Kong.

***

Mako fell asleep in the conn-pod. Not for the first time, either. Gipsy had a strangely comforting head space--or maybe she’d just spent too much time there and had become inured. It was probably that; the pilot rigs were hardly welcoming, and the space between them and the rest of the control panels was hardly expansive. Still, she fit well underneath the first row of controls under the visor, and the continued bustle of engineers and welders guaranteed a steady flow of warm air from somewhere on the rig. They were working through the night now to make the newest projected deadline, of which Dr. Gottlieb had tartly warned them, sketching in chalk and jerky hand gestures the mathematical probability of an impending breach. Everyone was eager to be ready for their last stand, for good or ill.

But she fell asleep to the hiss of welding coming from beneath her on Gipsy’s lower limbs, and she dreamed.

_Her dream was of towering waves and blue scales and deafening roars, and of a long, stumbling, painful fall onto snow and sand._

_She caught herself, though._

_Her sword dug deep into the surf, sinking further and further before finally slowing her, stopping her. Her knees hit the ground hard, but she didn’t crumple any further. Snow was falling, or maybe ash. In the hand that didn’t hold her sword, she clutched a bundle of patent red that could have been a shoe._

_Her hand was made of metal. Her heart was made of fire, and it burned steadily even as she knelt and withstood the onslaught of the sea. Her gauntleted hands clenched, and gears shrieked, high and repetitive--_

A notification on her tablet woke her, beeping steadily. Blinking slowly, her booted feet hitting the wall of the conn-pod when she stretched, Mako picked the tablet up off the ground to peer at it. Stacker was on his way back.

She exhaled, and got to her feet. “See you later,” she whispered, as she exited the conn-pod.

(She wasn’t sure whether it was the truth. Her own name was at the top of the list of co-pilot candidates on her tablet, but she was willing to admit to herself that she might have been very, very biased in her assessment, the Marshal’s own judgement notwithstanding.)

Gipsy didn’t move as Mako left her.

***

It was pouring rain as they approached the shatterdome, and Stacker breathed in warm, wet air as the helicopter touched down. It was good to be away from the dry cold of Alaska--his nose bled just slightly less often in the damp.  

Raleigh was restless beside him, his hands twitching in his lap.

“Come along, Becket,” Stacker said, buttoning his coat and stepping down onto the tarmac. “Hello, Miss Mori. Becket, this is Mako Mori, one of our best and brightest.” 

Then he turned from Mako to look at Becket, and had to tamp down a surge of trepidation as he watched Becket’s face _light up._

***

Becket looked not as Mako had imagined. It didn’t take much guesswork to know that the last five years had worn him down. When she said as much and he _answered_ , though...well.

“Welcome to Hong Kong,” she said in partial apology.

Becket’s gaze was steady on her, luminous and interested, like the world had gone away from them both for just one second.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she added, and meant it.

***

Raleigh met Mako Mori, and suddenly a lot of things started to make sense to him.

He really didn’t need Pentecost to tell him that she had been in charge of refurbishing Gipsy. Mako _reeked_ of her, in all sorts of indefinable ways--he hadn’t realised how much he had missed it either, hadn’t even noticed it with Yancy because the both of them had been the only ones to carry that psychic energy around. But Mako felt familiar, like home in a way Raleigh hadn’t felt in years, not since.

“Would you like to see her, Mr. Becket?” Mako asked him, and he nodded a little dumbly. It took them both away from the Marshal, who they nodded to in deference before making their way to the upper levels of the shatterdome to have a look at her.

 _God, she’s gorgeous,_ Raleigh thought. And frankly, he wasn’t sure whether he was referring to Gipsy or Mako.

“We’ve replaced the core engine with nuclear power,” Mako said, sounding like a proud mother. “She’s unique now.”

“She always was,” Raleigh replied, and he couldn’t stop staring. He wanted to reach out and touch her, get back inside her head, he wanted--

“She missed you,” Mako said, after a moment.

Raleigh turned to look at her. “Yeah?” he said. He sounded pathetically hopeful, even to his own ears.

“Yes,” she said, more firmly.

He shook his head. “Yance always said she knew more than she let on.”

Mako didn’t seem to know how to respond to that, and looked down at her tablet instead. “We have assembled a list of candidates for you to run trials with. I hope you will find an acceptable co-pilot among them.”

Raleigh frowned at her. “It’s not you?”

“What?”

“You’re not my co-pilot?”

“Why would I be?” Mako frowned back. “I’m not a Ranger yet.”

“In training, though. You have to be. What’s your simulation score?”

“Fifty-one trials, fifty-one kills,” she said, though she looked somewhat surprised at his certainty. “But surely you know best that drift compatibility above all else is the key, Mr. Becket.”

 _You brought her back, though,_ Raleigh wanted to say, _How much more compatible can you get?_ But he was pretty sure that wouldn’t make any sense outside his head, so he pressed his lips shut and shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. Are you on the list, at least? You’ve gotta be, a score like that.”

“I don’t know,” Mako said. Raleigh noticed that her knuckles were white on the tablet, “It will be reviewed by the Marshal first.”

“Huh.” Instinct told him not to press. “All right.”

“I’ll show you to your quarters,” Mako offered, and he agreed, following behind her.

***

Raleigh slept restlessly that night--he wasn’t unaccustomed to bedding down in odd places, but the sounds of a shatterdome, even at night, were unique and brought all sorts of memories, pleasant and unpleasant, back to the surface. He thought at one point, coming out of a strange dream full of metal, that he could hear an almighty crash from the other end of the complex, but fell back quickly enough into sleep that he forgot about it by morning.

Morning, as it happened, came with a different sort of crash.

“Prosypayus, amerikanskiy mal'chik!”Another resounding bang on his door. “Up! Before you break anything else!”

Raleigh groaned, and rolled off his cot. “What?” he said, swinging open the door. He blinked. “Kaidonovskaya?”

“Good, you know me, is much faster,” Sasha said. “Say good morning to Aleksis.”

Raleigh craned his head back to look at Aleksis, who took up the entirety of the rest of the doorway behind Sasha, and wracked his brain for whatever smattering of Russian he could recall. “Privetstviye, reyndzher.”

Aleksis waggled his fingers. “Privet.”

“Your jaeger is a troublemaker. Come see,” Sasha ordered Raleigh. Then she stopped briefly to look him up and down before smirking. “Trousers first. Then come see.”

Raleigh looked down at his lack of pants and sighed. “Okay.”

Two minutes and a pair of cargo pants and sweater later, Raleigh was in the heart of the shatterdome. “Um,” he said eloquently.

“Remind me again why I brought you back here, Becket,” Pentecost said dryly, though he didn’t sound altogether displeased.

“I’m the only third gen left, sir?” Raleigh tried.

“Hmm.”

An Australian drawl sounded from behind them. “What the fuck was all the--Christ. What’s got her so worked up?”

Pentecost turned slightly. “Ranger Hansen, this is Ranger Becket. Becket, you’ll know the elder Hansen, Herc. This is his son, Chuck.”

Raleigh turned and regarded Chuck. “Nice to meet you,” he said, offering his hand. “Saw you on TV the other day.”

Chuck raised his eyebrows, and didn’t move. “They brought Gipsy back for _you?_ And she remembers you? Bloody hell.” He walked away.

“Friendly,” Raleigh commented, dropping his hand. Herc gave him an apologetic nod, and then followed after his son.

“We don’t train ‘em to be friendly, Becket,” Pentecost said, but he sounded tired. “Now go tend to your traumatised machinery.”

“Sir.”

Pentecost strode away too, leaving Raleigh and some of the other crew and pilots ranged around, looking at the damage. Aleksis whistled softly.

Gipsy was unmoored from her place in the shatterdome, one arm thrown in the direction of the pilot quarters, the other clutched to its chest. They were lucky she hadn’t brought down much more than a few walkways and one crane. There were broken braces and support scaffolding everywhere at her feet.

Raleigh remembered vaguely that he had been dreaming of Yancy. Yancy and a streak of something bright and red, held tightly.

Maybe he had reached. Maybe Gipsy had wanted to reach for him.

“Where’s Miss Mori?” he asked no one in particular.

Sasha regarded him. “Trying to fix; where else?”

“Right. I should--”

“Yes,” Sasha said, a little indulgently.

Raleigh made his way down to the ground floor of the dome, dodging disgruntled workers who’d been awakened far too early to deal with Gipsy Danger’s foibles. “I’m a welder,” he said, when he finally tracked down Mako. “I can help.”

She looked at him carefully, and said, “There isn’t much point in rebuilding most of the supports when we’ll be moving her so soon. Thank you for the offer, though.” She paused, and then said, “Perhaps it might be best if you slept closer by. So she is not...reaching for you?”

Raleigh nodded. “I’ll bring my cot over. No guarantees that’ll improve things, though.”

“Might make it worse,” Mako agreed, with a small smile. “But what else can we do? We will not be sending you away, so.”

“So,” Raleigh echoed. “What can I do to help, then?”

“Test for a new co-pilot,” Mako said promptly. She glanced back at Gipsy. “I think you both need it.”

“Yeah,” Raleigh said, and the old pang of absence was dull and muted, enough for him to nod. “Sounds good.”

***

Mako didn’t want Becket testing for co-pilots. She wanted him in the shatterdome, looking after Gipsy with her. And if he had to be in the Kwoon, then she wanted to be there with him, and she wanted to be the one standing across from him, awaiting his movement.

...She was fairly certain that Gipsy’s feelings, insofar as they existed, were rubbing off on her.

There wasn’t much to be done with the scaffolding that had been pitched across the shatterdome in the night; several crews got it packed away and cleared from the main routes across the 'dome. The rest of the effort Mako instructed be turned towards putting the finishing touches on Gipsy, so that she could stand as freely (and with as wide a berth as could be granted) within the confines of the dome. If there were going to be any more incidents, Mako figured, they had better be for extreme reasons, and expressed in an extreme fashion.

“Miss Mori? The Marshal’s asking for you,” one of the techs said in passing. “He’s headed towards the Kwoon.”

She nodded, and handed off her tablet to the next-down manager in charge. Stacker was walking at a purposeful pace towards the Kwoon from the control room when she caught up with him.

“Sir?” she said, jogging to match his long stride. Stacker adjusted his pace accordingly, as had now been his habit for years.

“Miss Mori. I’ve been looking over your list of candidates.”

Mako felt her throat go tight. “Yes?”

“You do realise that I specifically asked for pilots who had, at minimum, either been in the field properly, or had had one hundred trials or more, yes?”

She opened her mouth, shut it, and then tried again. “I weighed those specifications against the high standards of performance and personal capability, with the aim to get the highest proportion of standards overall, sir. Was that incorrect?”

Stacker sighed. “No, that is perfectly logical, and an admirable way of narrowing down the list.”

Mako waited, and then stopped in her tracks when Stacker did.

“I need you on the engineering side, Mako,” Stacker said heavily, turning to face her. “Particularly with the job you’ve done with Gipsy.”

She bowed her head. She didn’t agree, but the possibility of this being his decision had certainly crossed her mind. “Yes, sir.”

“I would like you to observe the trials, however.”

Her throat felt tight. She nodded. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” He rested a warm hand on her shoulder. “Thank you. It’s a commendable list you’ve assembled.”

“Thank you, sir.”

They resumed walking. Behind them, and from several adjoining hallways, a small assembly poured out--the various pilots, having been called for the trials. They all straightened to attention and got out of the way as Stacker walked forward to enter the Kwoon.

Raleigh was waiting by the door. “Sir,” he said. He nodded at Mako, gaze warming briefly. “Miss Mori.”

“Becket, you’re right on time. We’ll be going by alphabetical order. You remember how this works?”

“Yes, sir.” Raleigh cast a look over the group of pilots. “Though to be fair, I only had to go one round last time.”

“I remember.” Stacker then raised his voice. “Cadets! Fall in line. Come forward when you’re called. This is a full-contact spar, no holds barred, but remember: this is not about winning; this is about exchange. And I want civil conversations in here. Understood?”

There was a smattering of nods through the group in the doorway. Stacker looked back at Raleigh. “Then let’s get started. Cadet Almeda, you’re up.”

***

Raleigh was bored.

It wasn’t that any of the candidates were _bad--_ in fact, he was impressed with the consistent quality the PPDC had apparently turned out up until its interest in jaegers waned completely. But if Stacker was meaning for these sessions to be ‘conversations’, then Raleigh was very much feeling like he was doing all the talking, and the men and women standing across from him were only half listening.

Also, it was more than a bit distracting to see Mako pursing her lips in displeasure at him after every match.

“What?” he asked eventually, after dispatching the eighth candidate within three moves.

“Problem, Ranger?” Pentecost said.

“I was asking Miss Mori,” Raleigh replied, gesturing at her with the staff in his hands. “You keep making that face like you’re disappointed. You picked these guys, didn’t you?”

She narrowed her eyes. “Yes, I did. I am not disappointed in them. I’m disappointed in you.”

And, well. Now it was _on._

***

Mako wasn’t expecting Stacker to capitulate like he did, but then again, Raleigh Becket was very good at pushing.

The staff felt good in her hands, polished and familiar in her grip. Everything felt familiar and warm--the space, the mats beneath her feet, the worn softness of her uniform.

The odd thing was, Raleigh felt familiar, too.

“I’m not gonna go easy on you,” Raleigh said.

“Neither will I,” she replied. If what she suspected was true, neither of them would need to.

They began. Point to Raleigh, point to her. Raleigh was graceful, comfortable in his movements, but he was not better than her. She could read his intentions in the way his hands curled, in the way his feet flexed on the mat. He was doing the same, eyes flicking to the angle of her arms, reacting and counteracting, and yes, she’d been right to put her own name at the top of the list, this felt _easy,_ like the katas she had been doing for years, like a third party was handing the points back and forth between them, mediating and supporting.

Then she got him in a hold that he couldn’t escape, and even as Stacker called an end, Raleigh was falling back like his strings had been cut, giving into her with a huff of breath that sounded satisfied and _happy._

He said, “She’s my co-pilot,” and Mako could feel a charge in the air between them; it made her mouth go slack in surprise, because it tasted metallic and like sleepy comfort all at once, like dark closed spaces and the diffused heat of distant welding.

Raleigh wasn’t looking at her, but she saw his nostrils flare, and the smallest curve of recognition at the corner of his lips.

Stacker looked resigned in front of them both.

***

After they’d come so far, Stacker needn’t have worried.

But it was a close call.

They suited up in silent anticipation. Raleigh tried not to get his hopes up, but it was hard. The conn-pod looked entirely different, but it felt familiar all the same, like stepping into a childhood home even after family had scattered and gone. It wasn't discomfiting, just strange.

Mako moved around the pod like she’d been living in it. So far as Raleigh could tell, she had been.

“Ready for this?” he asked her finally.

“Of course,” she said, her voice tight with nerves.

“Don’t fight the Drift,” Raleigh advised. “But don’t let it steer you either. There’s a lot of...there’s a lot in here.”

She smiled thinly at him, and patted the console in front of her. “I know.”

They locked in, and waited.

The Drift rose up around them. And then twisted.

“Mako,” Raleigh started.

“She’s chasing the RABIT,” Stacker warned.

Mako didn’t answer.

“Mako,” Raleigh repeated, more urgently. “Stay with me, come on--”

“Shit shit shit, we’re gonna have to pull the power--” Tendo snarled.

Gipsy pulled at her already-damaged scaffolding, sparks flying in all directions.

Instinct pulled at Raleigh. He took a breath, and then another.

And then let himself fall.

Gipsy shrieked distress, raising her arms, cannons charging.

“The override’s fucked, get out of here!” Tendo yelled. Technicians began to scramble. Stacker gritted his teeth, standing his ground. And then--

“Wait!” Raleigh’s voice came down suddenly through the comms. “It’s--don’t! I’ve got--oh my god.”

“Report, Ranger,” Stacker ordered.

“ _I can’t believe it_.”

“We can’t fucking wait if she’s gonna break the damn ‘Dome,” Stacker growled. “Get it under control, Becket, or we’re pulling the plug.”

Gipsy flinched, hesitated in her moorings.

And then from inside her, Raleigh shouted, his tone suddenly high and tight.

“It’s okay!” he yelled. “Wait! We’ve got her.”

***

In the dark of the conn-pod, and the glow of the Drift, Raleigh stood still, in mind and in body.

And he stared. The air was full of ash and dust. He didn’t feel it.

The child that was once Mako blinked away tears, and seemed to notice for the first time that she was not alone.

The shining memory of Stacker Pentecost rose from the chassis of Coyote Tango, and as he did, Yancy Becket took Mako’s hand.

It was suddenly warm, ash clearing away in the sunlight.

“Come on, Mako,” he said. “We’ve got you. Come on back.”

Raleigh, hardly daring to breathe, came up to flank her other side, unable to keep his eyes off either of them. “Yance?” he whispered.

Yancy smiled at him. “Not really. But close enough to be getting on with.” He touched Raleigh’s shoulder, more gently than he ever would have in life. “It’s good to see you, Raleigh.”

Mako looked up, tearing her eyes away from Stacker. “Kon'nichiwa. Anata dari?”

“I think you know,” Yancy told her. “Come on back, Mako. I want to hear you sing again.”

And then the world seemed to recede into whiteness: slowly, slowly, like encroaching snow. Raleigh relaxed into it, feeling the real world come back like he was waking from deep sleep. When he could, he turned his head.

Mako stared straight ahead, tears on her cheeks, but her eyes were focussed, and her hands were loose at her sides.

Around them, Gipsy came to a standstill, seeming to exhale with the drop her shoulders and her cannons powering down with a low whine.

“Mako?” Raleigh asked, out loud and through the Pons.

“I’m here,” she murmured. She looked over at him. “We’re here.”

He smiled at her. “Let’s finish this run, yeah?”

She nodded, and straightened. Without thinking about it, Raleigh mirrored her. Gipsy seemed to thrum with them both.

“Yes,” she said. “Let’s.”

***

Afterwards, in the command centre, Stacker glared at them amid the crowd of technicians and pilots that had all gathered.

“What the hell was that?”

“I lost control,” Mako said steadily.

“But we had her,” Raleigh cut in. “And she got it back. It was a clean run after that.”

“Who’s ‘we’?” Tendo asked, eyebrows around his hairline.

Mako and Raleigh looked at each other. “Gipsy,” they answered, in unison. It was both true and false, and not remotely complete.

“She’s glad to be back,” Raleigh added.

Stacker exhaled.

“Okay. I hope you’re ready to save the world.”

Mako looked over her shoulder at Sasha, who had her arms crossed, but had a twist of a smile curling the corners of her lips. She nodded.

Mako looked at Stacker, and bowed her head. “We’re ready,” she said.

The air was still warm between her and Raleigh, and between them and Gipsy. It smelled of rusted machinery and Alaskan snow and cherry blossoms.

They were going to win. All of them, past and present.

 


End file.
